Love story at the age of seventy

An university teacher, is the eldest patient of professor Stamate. For her to see her teenage love, the person she hadn't seen for fifty years, she wanted an aesthetic operation.

Article published in ' Ziarul de Iasi ' newspaper on 26.05.2006

She fulfilled her love life at the age of seventy. Meeting her love again, after a period of fifty years, made her take into consideration an aesthetic operation. That's how she became the eldest patient of professor Stamate, specialized doctor in plastic and reconstructive surgery at the the Hospital of Clinical Urgency."This romantic story of the lady impressed me so much, that I did everything to help her realize her dream, though she was old. And I must say that it was one of the most inedited experiences from my career", says professor Stamate, who revealed the details of the extraordinary love story,but kept secret the identity of his patient.

“I want you to make me look ten years younger"

"She called me first and told me to make an appointment with her because she wishes to discuss with me some delicate situations. She presented herself as being a university teacher, that retired a long time ago", said professor Teodor Stamate. In that scheduled day,in the doctor's office an old lady came, dressed very elegant, with a very a great amount of confidence, acquired in her years of teaching. She sit on a chair and I observed that she was a little bit embarrassed. But after that with a dashing voice she told me : "I want you to make me look ten years younger".

Students in love, separated by a train

In the first year of university, she fell in love with a boy that was as well a student,in the second year, at a Faculty of Engineering. It was 1945, at the end of World War II , when the German troops were still in Iasi . Because he was talented in technical drawing, the young men was recruited by the Germans, to help them make maps.He was working in a wagon that was held in the train station, and the interior was transformed into an office. But one day, when he was working on the maps, the wagon started moving and the young student stopped only in a station in Austria. There he saw the war end. After a couple of days, his girlfriend, which he couldn't say goodbye to, found out what happened to him. The events that followed seemed to have separated the two lovers. 'In Austria, with no money, with nothing, the young man decided to make new friends and emigrate in the United States of America. So he left in America, where he started a new life. There he finished his studies, opened his own business that gave him a good financial situation and never came back to Romania.He founded his own family, even having three children, says professor Stamate. In Iasi, Romania, the young student continued her life too. She finished university, got married, followed the teaching career and even had two kids.

Platonic love that lasts a Lifetime

Though a train separated them at the end of the World War II, the two of them continuously kept correspondence almost fifty years. 'After he arrived in America and built a nice life,he wrote his young love exactly what happened. Further more, a connection was established between the two ,where they told each other stories about their life. It was a friendly connection, "platonic" as the doctor says. In the communism period, the correspondence was limited to a couple of letters, notes and packages that contained small presents, sent by the man in Romania through the Romanians that came back in the country. But there were years when the university teacher didn't receive nothing from the United States. One day, before a holiday Christmas or Easter ,she received a sign: a greeting card or a package with a perfume. A small present, but with a enormous significance.

After the Revolution they both become widowed

With a few years before the Revolution, faith makes the two of them be alone. His wife died of cancer, and her husband died because of an infarct. Neither of them gets married again, but in the man's mind an idea pops up and after the events from '89 he makes his love one a big surprise. 'He called and told her to come to him in America, to spend their last years together. She told me she thought about this a lot but in the end decided to listen to him, at least now, at the end of her life. Besides that, their children were with their own families now, with well-built careers and they wouldn't of been a problem. But she wanted, before she met him again, to look ten years younger' remembers professor Stamate, that made a successful aesthetic operation with the eldest patient of his. The university professor proved to be the most disciplined patient of his and endured all the operation with a great courage. 'I made all the investigations first and I discovered that she was healthy for her age. Everything went the way I planned and even now I receive greetings from them on different occasions, says the doctor smiling. That's how, after half a century, doctor Stamate's patient is living her love story again, that began on the streets of the beautiful Copou park.

Carmen Maftei